Steps by which the South moved from the Democratic column in United States Presidential Elections to majority Republican, 1928-80

By Kenneth Walker

From the end of Reconstruction (1876) to 1928, the South voted as a block in U.S. presidential elections for the Democratic candidate. In 1928, the solid Democratic South was shattered when five states (Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia) gave their electoral votes to Herbert Hoover, the Republican presidential candidate. Although the motivations of voters are always difficult to determine, many southern voters appeared to desert Alfred Smith, the Democratic presidential candidate, because he was Roman Catholic and opposed to the prohibition of alcoholic beverages.

The next major step in the move of the South to become more Republican was in 1948. The Democratic party led by Harry Truman had a strong civil rights plank that was not at all pleasing to the South. As a result, many southern Democrats bolted the two major parties and established the Dixiecrat party led by Strom Thurmond. Very segregationist in tone, the Dixiecrat party won the presidential electoral vote of four of the southern states (Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina). Although the Republicans did not receive any of the presidential electoral votes of the south in this election, many of the Dixiecrats, including Strom Thurmond, moved into the Republican Party shortly after the 1948 election.

They apparently decided that a third party was not the best way to attain their goals.

By 1964, the Republican party, led by Barry Goldwater, made it clear that the Grand Old Party had changed its course and had become the states-rights party. Historically, the Republicans favored more centralization of power in Washington, D.C., and the Democrats opted for relatively more power at the state level.

There were several reasons for this switch. Most important was the fact the Republicans were in the minority at the national level for a great majority of the preceding 36 years. The Republicans trusted themselves to utilize national power "properly," especially for property rights. But the Republicans had not been in power very much in this period and their only hope to reduce the Democratic use of the national power was to limit the powers being exercised by the latter at the national level by the use of the states rights position.

Belatedly the Democrats, having been in power at the national level a great majority of the time during the preceding 36 years, discovered when they had earlier held to states rights principle, they accomplished very little for their constituents who tended to have less property and/or to be at the mercy of the property holders. But if they used the national power, they could build a platform under the poorer and lower-middle classes and also regulate the propertied interests in the public interest of the former.

Although there was a large number of economically poor people in the South, many southerners liked the sound of the Republicans becoming states-righters, because this translated to them as if Republicans were willing to give to the southern states more local control over racial matters. At least partly as a result of this, Goldwater received the electoral votes of five southern states (Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina) in the 1964 election.

By the election of 1980, this transition of the South to the Republican presidential column was nearly complete. In addition to the states-rights issue, the Republican party, with the charismatic Ronald Reagan in the leadership role, picked up some other values which seemed to be very dear to many southerners. These included gun rights, less separation of church and state, right to life on the abortion issue, anti-homosexuality and the patriarchal family. As a result, in the above election, Reagan received the electoral votes of 10 southern states. Only Georgia, the southern home state of Jimmy Carter, the Democratic president and presidential candidate in 1980, remained loyal to its Democratic favorite son.